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THE  CAUSES 


OF  TILE 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


A  LETTER  TO  THE  LOXDOX  TIMES. 


BY 

JOHX  LOTHROP  MOTLEY,  LL.D.,  D.C.L, 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  BISE  OF  THE  DUTCH  REPUBLIC,"  AND  "  HISTOBT  OF  THE  UNITED 
NETHERLANDS."" 


NEW  YORK: 
JAMES  G.  GREGORY, 

(8UCCE8SOB   TO  W.   A.   TOWNSEND    A  CO.,) 

No.  46  WALKER  STEEET. 
1861. 


(.  A.   ALVOED.  PEINTEE   NEW  TOKK. 


THE  CAUSES 


OF  THE 

AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


To  the  Editor  of  the  London  Times  : 

The  de  facto  question  in  America  has  been  referred 
at  last  to  the  dread  arbitrament  of  civil  war.  Time  and 
events  must  determine  whether  the  "great  Republic" 
is  to  disappear  from  the  roll  of  nations,  or  whether  it  is 
destined  to  survive  the  storm  which  has  gathered  over 
its  head.  There  is,  perhaps,  a  readiness  in  England  to 
prejudge  the  case;  a  disposition  not  to  exult  in  our 
downfall,  but  to  accept  the  fact ;  for  nations,  as  well  as 
individuals,  may  often  be  addressed  in  the  pathetic  lan- 
guage of  the  poet — 

M  Donee  eris  felix,  multos  numerabis  amicos, 
Tempora  cum  fuerint  nubila,  nullus  erit.'' 

Yet  the  trial  by  the  ordeal  of  battle  has  hardly  com- 
menced, and  it  would  be  presumptuous  to  affect  to  pen- 
etrate the  veil  of  even  the  immediate  future.  But  the 
question  de  jure  is  a  different  one.  The  right  and  the 
wrong  belong  to  the  past,  are  hidden  by  no  veil,  and 
may  easily  be  read  by  all  who  are  not  wilfully  blind. 


4 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


Yet  it  is  often  asked,  Why  have  the  Americans  taken 
up  arms?  Why  has  the  United  States  government 
plunged  into  what  is  sometimes  called  "  this  wicked 
war  ?"  Especially  it  is  thought  amazing  in  England 
that  the  President  should  have  recently  called  for  a 
great  army  of  volunteers  and  regulars,  and  that  the  in- 
habitants of  the  free  states  should  have  sprung  forward 
as  one  man  at  his  call,  like  men  suddenly  relieved  from 
a  spell.  It  would  have  been  amazing  had  the  call  been 
longer  delayed.  The  national  flag,  insulted  and  defied 
for  many  months,  had  at  last  been  lowered,  after  the 
most  astonishing  kind  of  siege  recorded  in  history,  to 
an  armed  and  organized  rebellion  ;  and  a  prominent 
personage  in  the  government  of  the  Southern  "  Confed- 
eracy" is  reported  to  have  proclaimed  amid  the  exulta- 
tions of  victory  that  before  the  first  of  May  the  same 
cherished  emblem  of  our  nationality  should  be  struck 
from  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  An  advance  of  the 
"  Confederate  troops"  upon  the  city  ;  the  flight  or  cap- 
tivity of  the  President  and  his  Cabinet;  the  seizure  of 
the  national  archives,  the  national  title  deeds,  and  the 
whole  national  machinery  of  foreign  intercourse  and 
internal  administration  by  the  Confederates;  and  the 
proclamation  from  the  American  palladium  itself  of  the 
Montgomery  Constitution  in  place  of  the  one  devised 
by  "Washington,  Madison,  Hamilton,  and  Jay — a  Con- 
stitution in  which  slavery  should  be  the  universal  law 
of  the  land,  the  corner-stone  of  the  political  edifice — 
were  events  which  seemed  for  a  few  days  of  intense 
anxiety  almost  probable. 

Had  this  really  been  the  result  without  a  blow  struck 
in  defence  of  the  national  government  and  the  old  con- 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


5 


stitntion,  it  is  certain  that  the  contumely  poured  forth 
upon  the  free  states  by  their  domestic  enemies  and  by 
the  world  at  large  would  have  been  as  richly  deserved 
as  it  would  have  been  amply  bestowed.  At  present 
such  a  catastrophe  seems  to  have  been  averted.  But 
the  levy  in  mass  of  such  a  vast  number  of  armed  men 
in  the  free  states,  in  swift  response  to  the  call  of  the 
President,  shows  how  deep  and  pervading  is  the  attach- 
ment to  the  constitution  and  to  the  flag  of  Union  in  the 
hearts  of  the  nineteen  millions  who  inhabit  those  states. 
It  is  confidently  believed,  too,  that  the  sentiment  is  not 
wholly  extinguished  in  the  nine  million  white  men  who 
dwell  in  the  slave  states,  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  there 
exists  a  large  party  throughout  that  country  who  be- 
lieve that  the  Union  furnishes  a  better  protection  for 
life,  property,  law,  civilization,  and  liberty,  than  even 
the  indefinite  extension  of  African  slavery  can  do. 

At  any  rate,  the  loyalty  of  the  free  states  has  proved 
more  intense  and  passionate  than  it  had  ever  been  sup- 
posed to  be  before.  It  is  recognized  throughout  their 
whole  people  that  the  constitution  of  1787  had  made  us  a 
nation.  The  efforts  of  a  certain  class  of  politicians  for 
a  long  period  had  been  to  reduce  our  commonwealth  to 
a  confederacy.  So  long  as  their  efforts  had  been  con- 
fined to  argument,  it  was  considered  sufficient  to  answer 
the  argument ;  but  now  that  secession,  instead  of  remain- 
ing a  topic  of  vehement  and  subtle  discussion,  has  ex- 
panded into  armed  and  fierce  rebellion  and  revolution, 
civil  war  is  the  inevitable  result.  It  is  the  result  fore- 
told by  sagacious  statesmen  almost  a  generation  ago,  in 
the  days  of  the  tariff  "nullification."  "To  begin  with 
nullification,"  said  Daniel  Webster  in  1833,  "  with  the 


6 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


avowed  intention,  nevertheless,  not  to  proceed  to  seces- 
sion, dismemberment,  and  general  revolution,  is  as  if 
one  were  to  take  the  plunge  of  Niagara,  and  cry  out 
that  he  would  stop  half-way  down."  And  now  the 
plunge  of  secession  has  been  taken,  and  we  are  all 
struggling  in  the  vortex  of  general  revolution. 

The  body  politic  known  for  seventy  years  as  the 
United  States  of  America  is  not  a  confederacy,  not  a 
compact  of  sovereign  states,  not  a  copartnership  ;  it  is  a 
commonwealth,  of  which  the  constitution  drawn  up  at 
Philadelphia  by  the  Convention  of  1787,  over  which 
Washington  presided,  is  the  organic,  fundamental  law. 
We  had  already  had  enough  of  a  confederacy.  The  thir- 
teen rebel  provinces,  afterwards  the  thirteen  original 
independent  states  of  America,  had  been  united  to  each 
other  during  the  revolutionary  war  by  articles  of  con- 
federacy. "The  said  states  hereby  enter  into  a  firm 
league  of  friendship  with  each  other?"*  Such  was  the 
language  of  1781,  and  the  league  or  treaty  thus  drawn 
up  was  ratified,  not  by  the  people  of  the  states,  but  by 
the  state  governments — the  legislative  and  executive 
bodies,  namely,  in  their  corporate  capacity. 

The  Continental  Congress,  which  was  the  central  ad- 
ministrative board  during  this  epoch,  was  a  diet  of 
envoys  from  sovereign  states.  It  had  no  power  to  act  on 
individuals.  It  could  not  command  the  states.  It  could 
move  only  by  requisitions  and  recommendations.  Its 
functions  were  essentially  diplomatic,  like  those  of  the 
States-General  of  the  old  Dutch  republic,  like  those  of 
the  modern  Germanic  confederation. 

We  were  a  league  of  petty  sovereignties.  When  the 
war  had  ceased,  when  our  independence  had  been  ac- 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


7 


knowl edged  in  1783,  we  sank  rapidly  into  a  condition  of 
utter  impotence,  imbecility,  anarchy.    We  had  achieved 

r  our  independence,  but  we  had  not  constructed  a  nation. 

We  were  not  a  body  politic.  No  laws  could  be  enforced, 
no  insurrections  suppressed,  no  debt  collected.  Neither 
property  nor  life  was  secure.  Great  Britain  had  made 
a  treaty  of  peace  with  us,  but  she  scornfully  declined  a 
treaty  of  commerce  and  amity;  not  because  we  had  been 
rebels,  but  because  we  were  not  a  state — because  we 
were  a  mere  dissolving  league  of  jarring  provinces,  inca- 
pable of  guarantying  the  stipulations  of  any  commercial 
treaty.  We  were  unable  even  to  fulfil  the  condition  of 
the  treaty  of  peace  and  enforce  the  stipulated  collection 
of  debts  due  to  British  subjects;  and  Great  Britain  re- 
fused, in  consequence,  to  give  up  the  military  posts 
which  she  held  within  our  frontiers. 

i  For  twelve  years  after  the  acknowledgment  of  our 

independence  we  were  mortified  by  the  spectacle  of  for- 
eign soldiers  occupying  a  long  chain  of  fortresses  south 
of  the  great  lakes  and  upon  our  own  soil.  We  were  a 
confederacy.  We  were  sovereign  states.  And  these 
were  the  fruits  of  such  a  confederacy  and  such  sov- 
ereignty. It  was,  until  the  immediate  present,  the 
darkest  hour  of  our  history.  But  there  were  patriotic 
and  sagacious  men  in  those  days,  and  their  efforts  at  last 
rescued  us  from  the  condition  of  a  confederacy.  The 
"  Constitution  of  the  United  States"  was  an  organic  law, 
enacted  by  the  sovereign  people  of  that  whole  territory 
which  is  commonly  called  in  geographies  and  histories 
the  United  States  of  America.  It  was  empowered  to 
act  directly,  by  its  own  legislative,  judicial  and  execu- 
tive machinery,  upon  every  individual  in  the  country. 


8 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


It  could  seize  his  property,  it  could  take  his  life,  for 
causes  of  which  itself  was  the  judge.  The  states  were 
distinctly  prohibited  from  opposing  its  decrees,  or  from 
exercising  any  of  the  great  functions  of  sovereignty. 
The  Union  alone  was  supreme,  "  anything  in  the  consti- 
tution and  laws  of  the  states  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing." Of  what  significance,  then,  was  the  title  of 
u  sovereign "  states,  arrogated  in  later  days  by  com- 
munities which  had  voluntarily  abdicated  the  most  vital 
attributes  of  sovereignty  ? 

But,  indeed,  the  words  "  sovereign "  and  "  sov- 
ereignty "  are  purely  inapplicable  to  the  American  sys- 
tem. In  the  Declaration  of  independence  the  provinces 
declare  themselves  "  free  and  independent  states,"  but 
the  men  of  those  days  knew  that  the  word  "  sovereign  " 
was  a  term  of  feudal  origin.  When  their  connection 
with  a  time-honored  feudal  monarchy  was  abruptly  sev- 
ered the  word  "  sovereign  "  had  no  meaning  for  us.  A 
sovereign  is  one  who  acknowledges  no  superior,  who  pos- 
sesses the  highest  authority  without  control,  who  is  su- 
preme in  power.  How  could  any  one  state  of  the 
United  States  claim  such  characteristics  at  all,  least  of 
all  after  its  inhabitants,  in  their  primary  assemblies,  had 
voted  to  submit  themselves,  without  limitation  of  time, 
to  a  constitution  which  was  declared  supreme  ?  The 
only  intelligible  source  of  power  in  a  country  beginning 
its  history  de  novo  after  a  revolution,  in  a  land  never 
subjected  to  military  or  feudal  conquest,  is  the  will  of 
the  people  of  the  whole  land  as  expressed  by  a  majority. 
At  the  present  moment,  unless  the  southern  revolution 
shall  prove  successful,  the  United  States  government  is 
a  fact,  an  established  authority.    In  the  period  between 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


9 


1783  and  1787  we  were  in  chaos.  In  May  of  1787  the 
convention  met  at  Philadelphia,  and,  after  some  months' 
deliberation,  adopted  with  unprecedented  unanimity  the 
project  of  the  great  law,  which,  so  soon  as  it  should  be 
accepted  by  the  people,  was  to  be  known  as  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States. 

It  was  not  a  compact.  Who  ever  heard  of  a  compact 
to  which  there  were  no  parties,  or  who  ever  heard  of  a 
compact  made  by  a  single  party  with  himself?  Yet 
the  name  of  no  state  is  mentioned  in  the  whole  docu- 
ment; the  states  themselves  are  only  mentioned  to  re- 
ceive commands  or  prohibitions,  and  the  "  people  of  the 
United  States"  is  the  single  party  by  whom  alone  the 
instrument  is  executed. 

The  constitution  was  not  drawn  up  by  the  states,  it 
was  not  promulgated  in  the  name  of  the  states,  it  was 
not  ratified  by  the  states.  The  states  never  acceded  to 
it,  and  possess  no  power  to  secede  from  it.  It  "  was  or- 
dained and  established"  over  the  states  by  a  power  su- 
perior to  the  states — by  the  people  of  the  whole  land  in 
their  aggregate  capacity,  acting  through  conventions  of 
delegates  expressly  chosen  for  the  purpose  within  each 
state,  independently  of  the  state  governments,  after  the 
project  bad  been  framed. 

There  had  always  been  two  parties  in  the  country 
during  the  brief  but  pregnant  period  between  the  abju- 
ration of  British  authority  and  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  1787.  There  was  a  party  advocating  state 
rights  and  local  self-government  in  its  largest  sense,  and 
a  party  favoring  a  more  consolidated  and  national  gov- 
ernment. The  .National  or  Federal  party  triumphed  in 
the  adoption  of  the  new  government.    It  was  strenu- 


10 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


ously  supported  and  bitterly  opposed  on  exactly  the 
same  grounds.  Its  friends  and  foes  both  agreed  that  it 
had  put  an  end  to  the  system  of  confederacy.  Whether 
it  were  an  advantageous  or  a  noxious  change,  all  agreed 
that  the  thing  had  been  done. 

"  In  all  our  deliberations  (says  the  letter  accompany- 
ing and  recommending  the  constitution  to  the  people) 
we  kept  steadily  in  view  that  which  appeared  to  ns  the 
greatest  interest  of  every  true  American,  the  consolida- 
tion of  our  Union,  in  which  is  involved  our  prosperity, 
safety,  perhaps  our  national  existence"  {Journal  of  the 
Convention,  1  Story,  368.) 

And  an  eloquent  opponent  denounced  the  project  for 
this  very  same  reason  : 

"  That  this  is  a  consolidated  government  (said  Henry) 
is  demonstrably  clear.  The  language  is,  '  we  the  peo- 
ple,' instead  of  6  we  the  states.'  It  must  be  one  great 
consolidated  national  government  of  the  people  of  all  the 
states." 

And  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  after 
the  government  had  been  established,  held  this  language 
in  an  important  case,  "  Gibbons  agt.  Ogden  :" 

"  It  has  been  said  that  the  states  were  sovereign,  were 
completely  independent,  and  were  connected  with  each 
other  by  a  league.  This  is  true.  But  when  these  allied 
sovereignties  converted  their  league  into  a  government, 
when  they  converted  their  Congress  of  ambassadors  into 
a  legislature,  empowered  to  enact  laws,  the  whole  charac- 
ter in  which  the  states  appear  underwent  a  change." 

There  was  never  a  disposition  in  any  quarter  in  the 
early  days  of  our  constitutional  history  to  deny  this 
great  fundamental  principle  of  the  Eepublie. 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


11 


"In  the  most  elaborate  expositions  of  the  constitu- 
tion by  its  friends  (says  Justice  Story),  its  character  as  a 
permanent  form  of  government,  as  a  fundamental  law, 
as  a  supreme  rule,  which  no  state  was  at  liberty  to  dis- 
regard, to  suspend,  or  to  annul,  was  constantly  admitted 
and  insisted  upon."    (1  Story,  325.) 

The  fears  of  its  opponents,  then,  were  that  the  new 
system  would  lead  to  a  strong,  to  an  over-centralized 
government.  The  fears  of  its  friends  were  that  the  cen- 
tral power  of  theory  would  prove  inefficient  to  cope 
with  the  local,  or  state  forces,  in  practice.  The  inexpe- 
rience of  the  last  thirty  years  and  the  catastrophe  of  the 
present  year,  have  shown  which  class  of  fears  were  the 
more  reasonable. 

Had  the  Union  thus  established  in  1787  been  a  con- 
federacy, it  might  have  been  argued,  with  more  or  less 
plausibility,  that  the  states  which  peaceably  acceded  to 
it,  might  at  pleasure  peaceably  secede  from  it.  It  is 
none  the  less  true  that  such  a  proceeding  would  have 
stamped  the  members  of  the  convention — Washington, 
Madison,  Jay,  Hamilton  and  their  colleagues  —  with 
utter  incompetence ;  for  nothing  can  be  historically 
more  certain  than  that  their  object  was  to  extricate  us 
from  the  anarchy  to  which  that  principle  had  brought 
us. 

"However  gross  a  heresy  it  may  he  (say  the  federal- 
ists, recommending  the  new  constitution),  to  maintain 
that  a  party  to  a  compact  has  a  right  to  revoke  that 
compact,  the  doctrine  has  had  respectable  advocates. 
The  possibility  of  such  a  question  shows  the  necessity 
of  laying  the  foundation  of  our  national  government 
deeper  than  in  the  mere  sanction  of  delegated  author- 


12 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


ity.  The  fabric  of  American  empire  ought  to  rest  on 
the  solid  basis  of  the  consent  of  the  people." 

Certainly,  the  most  venerated  expounders  of  the  con- 
stitution— Jay,  Marshall,  Hamilton,  Kent,  Story,  Web- 
ster— were  of  opinion  that  the  intention  of  the  conven- 
tion to  establish  a  permanent  consolidated  government, 
a  single  commonwealth,  had  been  completely  successful. 

"  The  great  and  fundamental  defect  of  the  confedera- 
tion of  1781  (says  Chancellor  Kent),  which  led  to  its 
eventual  overthrow,  was  that,  in  imitation  of  all  former 
confederacies,  it  carried  the  decrees  of  the  federal  council 
to  the  states  in  their  sovereign  capacity.  The  great  and 
incurable  defect  of  all  former  federal  governments,  such 
as  the  Amphictyonic,  Achaean,  and  Lycian  Confederacies, 
and  the  Germanic,  Helvetic,  Hanseatic  and  Dutch  Re- 
publics, is  that  they  were  sovereignties  over  sovereignties. 
The  first  effort  to  relieve  the  people  of  the  country  from 
this  state  of  national  degradation  and  ruin  came  from 
"Virginia.  The  general  convention  afterwards  met  at 
Philadelphia  in  May,  1787.  The  plan  was  submitted  to 
a  convention  of  delegates  chosen  by  the  people  at  large 
in  each  state  for  assent  and  ratification.  Such  a  mea- 
sure was  laying  the  foundations  of  the  fabric  of  our 
national  polity  where  alone  they  ought  to  be  laid — on  the 
broad  consent  of  the  people."    (1  Kent,  225.) 

It  is  true  that  the  consent  of  the  people  was  given  by 
the  inhabitants  voting  in  each  state  ;  but  in  what  other 
conceivable  way  could  the  people  of  the  whole  country 
have  voted  2  "  They  assembled  in  the  several  states," 
said  Story  ;  "  but  where  else  could  they  assemble  ?" 

Secession  is,  in  brief,  the  return  to  chaos  from  which 
we  emerged  three-quarters  of  a  century  since.    No  logi- 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  "WAR. 


13 


cal  sequence  can  be  more  perfect.  If  one  state  lias  a 
right  to  secede  to-day,  asserting  what  it  calls  its  sover- 
eign tv,  another  may,  and  probably  will,  do  the  same 
to-morrow,  a  third  on  the  next  day,  and  so  on,  until  there 
are  none  to  secede  from.  Granted  the  premises  that 
each  state  may  peaceably  secede  from  the  Union,  it  fol- 
lows that  a  county  may  peaceably  secede  from  a  state, 
and  a  town  from  a  county,  until  there  is  nothing  left 
but  a  horde  of  individuals  all  seceding  from  each  other. 
The  theory  that  the  people  of  a  whole  country  in  their 
aggregate  capacity  are  supreme  is  intelligible ;  and  it 
has  been  a  fact,  also,  in  America  for  seventy  years. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  show,  if  the  people  of  a  state  be 
sovereign,  that  the  people  of  a  county  or  of  a  village, 
and  the  individuals  of  the  village,  are  not  equally  sov- 
ereign, and  justified  in  "resuming  their  sovereignty" 
when  their  interest  or  their  caprice  seems  to  impel  them. 
The  process  of  disintegration  brings  back  the  commu- 
nity to  barbarism,  precisely  as  its  converse  has  built  up 
commonwealths — whether  empires,  kingdoms,  or  repub- 
lics— out  of  original  barbarism. 

Established  authority,  whatever  the  theory  of  its  ori- 
gin, is  a  fact.  It  should  never  be  lightly  or  capriciously 
overturned.  They  who  venture  on  the  attempt  should 
weigh  well  the  responsibility  which  is  upon  them. 
Above  all,  they  must  expect  to  be  arraigned  for  their 
deeds  before  the  tribunal  of  the  civilized  world  and  of 
future  ages — a  court  of  last  appeal,  the  code  of  which 
is  based  on  the  Divine  principles  of  right  and  reason, 
which  are  dispassionate  and  eternal.  Ko  man,  on  either 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  with  Anglo-Saxon  blood  in  his 
veins,  will  dispute  the  right  of  a  people,  or  of  any  por- 

2 


14 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


tion  of  a  people,  to  rise  against  oppression,  to  demand 
redress  of  grievances,  and  in  case  of  denial  of  justice  to 
take  np  arms  to  vindicate  the  sacred  principles  of  lib- 
erty. Few  Englishmen  or  Americans  will  deny  that 
the  source  of  government  is  the  consent  of  the  governed, 
or  that  any  nation  has  the  right  to  govern  itself  accord- 
ing to  its  own  will.  When  the  silent  consent  is  changed 
to  tierce  remonstrance  the  revolution  is  impending. 

The  right  of  revolution  is  indisputable.  It  is  written 
on  the  whole  record  of  our  race.  British  and  American 
history  is  made  up  of  rebellion  and  revolution.  Many 
of  the  crowned  kings  were  rebels  or  usurpers.  Hamp- 
den, Pym  and  Oliver  Cromwell;  Washington,  Adams 
and  Jefferson — all  were  rebels.  It  is  no  word  of  re- 
proach. But  these  men  all  knew  the  work  they  had  set 
themselves  to  do.  They  never  called  their  rebellion 
"peaceable  secession."  They  were  sustained  by  the 
consciousness  of  right  when  they  overthrew  established 
authority,  but  they  meant  to  overthrow  it.  They  meant  # 
rebellion,  civil  war,  bloodshed,  infinite  suffering  for 
themselves  and  their  whole  generation,  for  they  ac- 
counted them  welcome  substitutes  for  insulted  liberty 
and  violated  right.  There  can  be  nothing  plainer,  then, 
than  the  American  right  of  revolution.  But,  then,  it 
should  be  called  revolution.  "Secession,  as  a  revolu- 
tionary right,"  said  Daniel  Webster  in  the  Senate,  nearly 
thirty  years  ago,  in  words  that  now  sound  prophetic — 
"  is  intelligible.  As  a  right  to  be  proclaimed  in  the 
m  idst  of  civil  commotions,  and  asserted  at  the  head  of 
armies,  I  can  understand  it.  But  as  a  practical  right, 
existing  under  the  constitution,  and  in  conformity  with 
its  provisions,  it  seems  to  be  nothing  but  an  absurdity, 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


15 


for  it  supposes  resistance  to  government  under  the  au- 
thority of  government  itself ;  it  supposes  dismember- 
ment without  violating  the  principles  of  Union ;  it  sup- 
poses the  violation  of  oaths  without  responsibility  ;  it 
supposes  opposition  to  law  without  crime ;  it  supposes 
the  total  overthrow  of  government  without  revolution." 

The  men  who  had  conducted  the  American  people 
through  a  long  and  fearful  revolution  were  the  founders 
of  the  new  commonwealth  which  permanently  super- 
seded the  subverted  authority  of  the  crown.  They 
placed  the  foundations  on  the  unbiassed,  untrammelled 
consent  of  the  people.  They  were  sick  of.  leagues,  of 
petty  sovereignties,  of  governments  which  could  not 
govern  a  single  individual.  The  framers  of  the  consti- 
tution, which  has  now  endured  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury, and  under  which  the  nation  has  made  a  material 
and  intellectual  progress  never  surpassed  in  history, 
were  not  such  triflers  as  to  be  ignorant  of  the  conse- 
quences of  their  own  acts.  The  constitution  which  they 
offered,  and  which  the  people  adopted  as  its  own,  talked 
not  of  sovereign  states — spoke  not  the  word  confederacy. 
In  the  very  preamble  to  the  instrument  are  inserted  the 
vital  words  which  show  its  character,  "  We,  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  to  insure  a  more  perfect  union, 
and  to  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  for  ourselves  and 
our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  constitution" 
Sic  volo,  sic  jubeo.  It  is  the  language  of  a  sovereign 
solemnly  speaking  to  the  world.  It  is  the  promulgation 
of  a  great  law,  the  norma  agendi  of  a  new  common- 
wealth.   It  is  no  compact. 

"  A  compact  (says  Blackstone)  is  a  promise  proceed- 
ing from  us.    Law  is  a  command  directed  to  us.  The 


16 


THE  CAUSES  OF  TriK 


language  of  a  compact  is,  We  will  or  will  not  do  this ; 
that  of  a  law  is,  Thou  shalt  or  shalt  not  do  it."  (1  B. 
38,  44,  45.) 

And  this  is  throughout  the  language  of  the  constitu- 
tion. Congress  shall  do  this  ;  the  President  shall  do 
that ;  the  states  shall  not  exercise  this  or  that  power. 
Witness,  for  example,  the  important  clauses  by  which 
the  "  sovereign"  states  are  shorn  of  all  the  great  attri- 
butes of  sovereignty — no  state  shall  coin  money,  nor 
emit  bills  of  credit,  nor  pass  ex  post  facto  laws,  nor  laws 
impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  nor  maintain 
armies  and  navies,  nor  grant  letters  of  marque,  nor 
make  compacts  with  other  states,  nor  hold  intercourse 
with  foreign  powers,  nor  grant  titles  of  nobility  ;  and 
that  most  significant  phrase,  "this  constitution,  and  the 
laws  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  shall  he  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land" 

Could  language  be  more  imperial  ?  Could  the  claim 
to  state  "sovereignty"  be  more  completely  disposed  of 
at  a  word  ?  How  can  that  be  sovereign,  acknowledging 
no  superior,  supreme,  which  has  voluntarily  accepted  a 
supreme  law  from  something  which  it  acknowledges  as 
superior  ? 

The  constitution  is  perpetual,  not  provisional  or  tem- 
porary. It  is  made  for  all  time — M  for  ourselves  and  our 
posterity."  It  is  absolute  within  its  sphere.  "  This  con- 
stitution shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  anything 
in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  a  state  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding." Of  what  value,  then,  is  a  law  of  a  state 
declaring  its  connection  with  the  Union  dissolved  ?  The 
constitution  remains  supreme,  and  is  bound  to  assert  its 
supremacy  till  overpowered  by  force.    The  use  of  force 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


17 


— of  armies  and  navies  of  whatever  strength — in  order 
to  compel  obedience  to  the  civil  and  constitutional  au- 
thority, is  not  "wicked  war/1  is  not  civil  war,  is  not  war 
at  all.  So  long  as  it  exists  the  government  is  obliged  to 
put  forth  its  strength  when  assailed.  The  President,  who 
has  taken  an  oath  before  God  and  man  to  maintain  the 
constitution  and  laws,  is  perjured  if  he  yields  the  con- 
stitution and  laws  to  armed  rebellion  without  a  strug- 
gle He  knows  nothing  of  states.  Within  the  sphere  of 
the  United  States  government  he  deals  with  individuals 
only,  citizens  of  the  great  republic,  in  whatever  portion 
of  it  they  may  happen  to  live.  He  has  no  choice  but  to 
enforce  the  laws  of  the  republic  wherever  they  may  be 
resisted.  When  he  is  overpowered,  the  government 
ceases  to  exist.  The  Union  is  gone,  and  Massachusetts, 
Rhode  Island,  and  Ohio  are  as  much  separated  from 
each  other  as  they  are  from  Georgia  or  Louisiana.  An- 
archy has  returned  upon  us.  The  dismemberment  of 
the  commonwealth  is  complete.  We  are  again  in  the 
chaos  of  1785. 

But  it  is  sometimes  asked  why  the  constitution  did 
not  make  a  special  provision  against  the  right  of  seces- 
sion. How  could  it  do  so  ?  The  people  created  a  con- 
stitution over  the  whole  land,  with  certain  defined,  accu- 
rately enumerated  powers,  and  among  these  were  all  the 
chief  attributes  of  sovereignty.  It  was  forbidden  to  a 
state  to  coin  money,  to  keep  armies  and  navies,  to  make 
compacts  with  other  states,  to  hold  intercourse  with  for- 
eign nations,  to  oppose  the  authority  of  the  government. 
To  do  any  one  of  these  things  is  to  secede,  for  it  would  be 
physically  impossible  to  do  any  one  of  them  without  se- 
cession. It  would  have  been  puerile  for  the  constitution 
2* 


18  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 

to  say  formally  to  each  state,  "  Thou  shalt  not  secede." 
The  constitution,  being  the  supreme  law,  being  perpet- 
ual, and  having  expressly  forbidden  to  the  states  those 
acts  without  which  secession  is  an  impossibility,  would 
have  heen  wanting  in  dignity  had  it  used  such  super- 
fluous phraseology.  This  constitution  is  supreme,  what- 
ever laws  a  state  may  enact,  says  the  organic  law.  Was 
it  necessary  to  add,  "  and  no  state  shall  enact  a  law  of 
secession."  To  add  to  a  great  statute,  in  which  the  sov- 
ereign authority  of  the  land  declares  its  will,  a  phrase 
such  as  "  and  be  it  further  enacted  that  the  said  law 
shall  not  be  violated,"  would  scarcely  seem  to  strengthen 
the  statute. 

It  was  accordingly  enacted  that  new  states  might  be 
admitted ;  but  no  permission  was  given  for  a  state  to 
secede. 

Provisions  were  made  for  the  amendment  of  the  con- 
stitution from  time  to  time,  and  it  was  intended  that 
those  provisions  should  be  stringent.  A  two-thirds  vote 
in  both  Houses  of  Congress,  and  a  ratification  in  three 
quarters  of  the  whole  number  of  states,  are  conditions 
only  to  be  complied  with  in  grave  emergencies.  But 
the  constitution  made  no  provision  for  its  own  dissolu- 
tion ;  and  if  it  had  done  so,  it  would  have  been  a  pro- 
ceeding quite  without  example  in  history.  A  constitu- 
tion can  only  be  subverted  by  revolution,  or  by  foreign 
conquest  of  the  land.  The  revolution  may  be  the  re- 
sult of  a  successful  rebellion.  A  peaceful  revolution 
is  also  conceivable  in  the  case  of  the  United  States. 
The  same  power  which  established  the  constitution  may 
justly  destroy  it.  The  people  of  the  whole  land  may 
meet,  by  delegates,  in  a  great  national  convention,  as 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


19 


they  did  in  1787,  and  delare  that  the  constitution  no 
longer  answers  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  ordained ; 
that  it  no  longer  can  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty 
for  the  people  in  present  and  future  generations,  and 
that  it  is  therefore  forever  abolished.  "When  that  pro- 
ject has  been  submitted  again  to  the  people  voting  in 
their  primary  assemblies,  not  influenced  by  fraud  or 
force,  the  revolution  is  lawfully  accomplished,  and  the 
Union  is  no  more. 

Such  a  proceeding  is  conceivable,  although  attended 
with  innumerable  difficulties  and  dangers.  But  these 
are  not  so  great  as  those  of  the  civil  war  into  which  the 
action  of  the  seceding  states  has  plunged  the  country. 
The  division  of  the  national  domain  and  other  property, 
the  navigation  and  police  of  the  great  rivers,  the  ar- 
rangement and  fortification  of  frontiers,  the  transit  of 
the  isthmus,  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  the  control 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  these  are  significant  phrases 
which  have  an  appaling  sound ;  for  there  is  not  one  of 
them  that  does  not  contain  the  seeds  of  war.  In  any 
separation,  however  accomplished,  these  difficulties  must 
be  dealt  with,  but  there  would  seem  less  hope  of  arriv- 
ing at  a  peaceful  settlement  of  them  now  that  the  action 
of  the  seceding  states  has  been  so  precipitate  and  law- 
less. For  a  single  state,  one  after  another,  to  resume 
those  functions  of  sovereignty  which  it  had  uncondition- 
ally abdicated  when  its  people  ratified  the  constitution 
of  1787;  to  seize  forts,  arsenals,  custom-houses,  post- 
offices,  mints,  and  other  valuable  property  of  the  Union, 
paid  for  by  the  treasure  of  the  Union,  was  not  the  ex- 
ercise of  a  legal  function,  but  it  was  rebellion,  treason, 
and  plunder. 


20 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


It  is  strange  that  Englishmen  should  find  difficulty  in 
understanding  that  the  United  States  government  is  a 
nation  among  the  nations  of  the  earth ;  a  constituted 
authority,  which  may  be  overthrown  by  violence,  as 
may  be  the  fate  of  any  state,  whether  kingdom  or  re- 
public, but  which  is  false  to  the  people  if  it  does  not  its 
best  to  preserve  them  from  the  horrors  of  anarchy,  even 
at  the  cost  of  blood.  The  "United  States"  happens  to 
be  a  plural  title,  but  the  commonwealth  thus  designated 
is  a  unit,  "e  plaribus  unum."  The  Union  alone  it 
clothed  with  imperial  attributes  /  the  Union  alone  is 
Icnoicn  and  recognized  in  the  family  of  nations  f  the 
Union  alone  holds  the  purse  and  the  sword,  regulates 
foreign  intercourse,  imposes  taxes  on  foreign  commerce, 
makes  war  and  concludes  peace.  The  armies,  the  na- 
vies, the  militia,  belong  to  the  Union  alone ;  and  the 
president  is  commander-in-chief  of  all.  Xo  state  can 
keep  troops  or  fleets.  What  man  in  the  civilized  world 
has  not  heard  of  the  United  States ;  what  man  in  Eng- 
land can  tell  the  names  of  all  the  individual  states  ? 
And  yet,  with  hardly  a  superficial  examination  of  our 
history  and  our  constitution,  men  talk  glibly  about  a  con- 
federacy, a  compact,  a  copartnership,  and  the  right  of  a 
state  to  secede  at  pleasure,  not  knowing  that  by  admit- 
ting such  loose  phraseology  and  such  imaginary  rights, 
we  should  violate  the  first  principles  of  our  political  or- 
ganization, should  fly  in  the  face  of  our  history,  should 
trample  under  foot  the  teachings  of  Jay,  Hamilton, 
Washington,  Marshall,  Madison,  Dane,  Kent,  Story, 
and  Webster,  and  accepting  only  the  dogmas  of  Mr. 
Calhoun  as  infallible,  surrender  forever  our  national 
laws  and  our  national  existence. 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


21 


Englishmen  themselves  live  in  a  united  empire ;  but 
if  the  kingdom  of  Scotland  should  secede,  should  seize 
all  the  national  property,  forts,  arsenals,  and  public 
treasure  on  its  soil,  organize  an  army,  send  forth  foreign 
ministers  to  Louis  Napoleon,  the  Emperor  of  Austria, 
and  other  powers,  issue  invitations  to  all  the  pirates  of 
the  world  to  prey  upon  English  commerce,  screening 
their  piracy  from  punishment  by  the  banner  of  Scot- 
land, and  should  announce  its  intention  of  planting  that 
flag  upon  Buckingham  Palace,  it  is  probable  that  a 
blow  or  two  would  be  struck  to  defend  the  national 
honor  and  the  national  existence,  without  fear  that  the 
civil  war  would  be  denounced  as  wicked  and  fratricidal. 
Yet  it  would  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  state  of  Flori- 
da, for  example,  a  Spanish  province,  purchased  for  na- 
tional purposes  some  forty  years  ago  by  the  United 
States  government  for  several  millions,  and  fortified 
and  furnished  with  navy  yards  for  national  uses  at  a 
national  expense  of  many  more  millions,  and  number- 
ing at  this  moment  a  population  of  only  eighty  thou- 
sand white  men,  should  be  more  entitled  to  resume  its 
original  sovereignty  than  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Wil- 
liam the  Lion  and  Robert  Bruce. 

The  terms  of  the*treaty  between  England  and  Scot- 
land were  perpetual,  and  so  is  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  The  United  Empire  may  be  destroyed 
by  revolution  and  war,  and  so  may  the  United  States  ; 
but  a  peaceful  and  legal  dismemberment  without  the 
consent  of  the  majority  of  the  whole  people  is  an  im- 
possibility. 

But  it  is  sometimes  said  that  the  American  Republic 
originated  in  secession  from  the  mother  country,  and 


22 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


that  it  is  unreasonable  of  the  Union  to  resist  the  seced- 
ing movement  on  the  part  of  the  new  Confederacy. 
But  it  so  happens  that  the  one  case  suggests  the  other 
only  by  the  association  of  contrast.  The  thirteen  colo- 
nies did  not  intend  to  secede  from  the  British  empire. 
They  were  forced  into  secession  by  a  course  of  policy 
on  the  part  of  the  mother  country  such  as  no  English 
administration  of  the  present  day  can  be  imagined 
capable  of  adopting.  Those  Englishmen  in  America 
were  loyal  to  the  Crown  ;  but  they  exercised  the  right 
which  cisatlantic  or  transatlantic  Englishmen  have  al- 
ways exercised,  of  resistance  to  arbitrary  government. 
Taxed  without  being  represented,  and  insulted  by  meas- 
ures taken  to  enforce  the  odious  but  not  exorbitant  im- 
posts, they  did  not  secede,  nor  declare  their  independ- 
ence. On  the  contrary,  they  made  every  effort  to  avert 
such  a  conclusion.  In  the  words  of  the  "  forest-born 
Demosthenes" — as  Lord  Byron  called  the  great  Vir- 
ginian, Patrick  Henry — the  Americans  "  petitioned,  re- 
monstrated, cast  themselves  at  the  foot  of  the  throne, 
and  implored  its  interposition  to  arrest  the  tyrannical 
hands  of  the  ministers  and  Parliament.  But  their  peti- 
tion were  slighted,  their  remonstrances  procured  only 
additional  violence  and  insult,  as  they  wTere  spurned 
with  contempt  from  the  foot  of  the  throne." 

The  "  Boston  massacre,"  the  Boston  port-bill,  the 
Boston  "  tea-party,"  the  battle  of  Lexington,  the  battle 
of  Bunker's  Hill,  were  events  which  long  preceded  the 
famous  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  was  not  until 
the  colonists  felt  that  redress  for  grievances  was  impos- 
sible that  they  took  the  irrevocable  step,  and  renounced 
their  allegiance  to  the  Crown.    The  revolution  had 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


23 


come  at  last,  they  had  been  forced  into  it,  but  they 
knew  that  it  was  revolution,  and  that  they  were  acting 
at  the  peril  of  their  lives.  "  We  must  be  unanimous 
in  this  business,"  said  Hancock  ;  "  we  must  all  hang  to- 
gether." "  Yes,"  replied  Franklin,  "  or  else  we  shall  all 
hang  separately." 

The  risk  incurred  by  the  colonists  was  enormous,  but 
the  injury  to  the  mother  country  was  comparatively 
slight.  They  went  out  into  darkness  and  danger  them- 
selves, but  the  British  empire  was  not  thrown  into  anar- 
chy and  chaos  by  their  secession. 

Thus  their  course  was  the  reverse  of  that  adopted  by 
the  South.  The  prompt  secession  of  seven  states  be- 
cause of  the  constitutional  election  of  a  President  over 
the  candidates  voted  for  by  the  people  was  the  redress 
in  advance  of  grievances  which  they  may,  reasonably 
or  unreasonably,  have  expected,  but  which  had  not  yet 
occurred.  There  is  the  high  authority  of  the  Yice-Pres- 
ident  of  the  southern  "  Confederacy,"  who  declared  a 
week  after  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  that  the  election 
was  not  a  cause  for  secession,  and  that  there  was  no 
certainty  that  he  would  have  either  the  power  or  the 
inclination  to  invade  the  constitutional  rights  of  the 
South.  In  the  free  states  it  was  held  that  the  resolu- 
tions of  the  convention  by  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nom- 
inated were  scrupulously  and  conscientiously  framed  to 
protect  all  those  constitutional  rights.  The  question  of 
slavery  in  the  territories,  of  the  future  extension  of 
slavery,  was  one  which  had  always  been  an  open  ques- 
tion, and  on  which  issue  was  now  joined.  But  it  was 
no  question  at  all  that  slavery  within  a  state  was  sacred 
from  all  interference  by  the  general  government,  or  by 


24 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


the  free  states,  or  by  individuals  in  those  states  ;  and 
the  Chicago  Convention  strenuously  asserted  that  doc- 
trine. 

The  question  of  free  trade,  which  is  thrust  before  the 
English  public  by  many  journals,  had  no  immediate 
connection  with  the  secession,  although  doubtless  the 
desire  of  direct  trade  with  Europe  has  long  been  a 
prominent  motive  at  the  South.  The  Gulf  states  se- 
ceded under  the  moderate  tariff  of  1S57,  for  which  South 
Carolina  voted  side  by  side  with  Massachusetts.  The 
latter  state,  although  for  political,  not  economical  rea- 
sons it  thought  itself  obliged  since  the  secession  to  sus- 
tain the  Pennsylvania  interest  by  voting  for  the  absurd 
Morrill  bill,  is  not  in  favor  of  protection.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  great  manufactories  on  the  Merrimac  river 
have  long  been  independent  of  protection,  and  export 
many  million  dollars'  worth  of  cotton  and  other  fabrics 
to  foreign  countries,  underselling  or  competing  with  all 
the  world  in  open  market.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
any  European  nation  to  drive  the  American  manufac- 
turer from  the  markets  of  the  American  continent  in 
the  principal  articles  of  cheap  clothing  for  the  masses, 
tariff  or  no  tariff.  This  is  a  statistical  fact  which  can- 
not be  impugned. 

The  secession  of  the  colonies,  after  years  of  oppression 
and  grievances  for  which  redress  had  been  sought  in 
vain,  left  the  British  empire,  3,000  miles  off,  in  security, 
with  constitution  and  laws  unimpaired,  even  if  its  colo- 
nial territory  were  seriously  diminished.  The  secession 
of  the  southern  states,  in  contempt  of  any  other  remedy 
for  expected  grievances,  is  followed  by  the  destruction 
of  the  whole  body  politic  of  which  they  were  vital  parts. 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


25 


Not  only  is  the  united  republic  destroyed  if  the  revo- 
lution prove  successful,  but,  even  if  the  people  of  the 
free  states  have  the  enthusiasm  and  sagacity  to  recon- 
struct their  Union,  and  by  a  new  national  convention 
to  re  ordain  and  re-establish  the  time-honored  constitu- 
tion, still  an  immense  territory  is  lost.  But  the  extent 
of  that  territory  is  not  the  principal  element  in  the  dis- 
aster. The  world  is  wide  enough  for  all.  It  is  the  loss 
of  the  southern  marine  frontier  which  is  fatal  to  the  Re- 
public. Florida  and  the  vast  Louisiana  territory  pur- 
chased by  the  Union  from  foreign  countries,  and  gar- 
nished with  fortresses  at  the  expense  of  the  Uuion,  are 
fallen  with  all  these  improvements  into  the  hands  of  a 
foreign  and  unfriendly  power. 

Should  the  dire  misfortune  of  a  war  with  a  great 
maritime  nation,  with  England  or  France,  for  example, 
befall  the  Union,  its  territory,  hitherto  almost  impregna- 
ble, might  now  be  open  to  fleets  and  armies  acting  in 
alliance  wTith  a  hostile  "  Confederacy,"  which  has  be- 
come possessed  of  an  important  part  of  the  Union's 
maritime  line  of  defence.  Moreover  the  Union  has 
twelve  thousand  ships,  numbering  more  than  five  mil- 
lion tons,  the  far  greater  part  of  which  belong  to  the 
free  states,  and  the  vast  commerce  of  the  Mississippi 
and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  requires  and  must  receive  pro- 
tection at  every  hazard. 

Is  it  strange  that  the  Union  should  make  a  vigorous, 
just,  and  lawful  effort  to  save  itself  from  the  chaos  from 
which  the  constitution  of  1787  rescued  the  country  ? 
Who  that  has  read  and  pondered  the  history  of  that 
dark  period  does  not  shudder  at  the  prospect  of  its  re- 
turn? 


3 


26 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


But  yesterday  we  were  a  state — the  great  republic — 
prosperous  and  powerful,  with  a  flag  known  and  hon- 
ored all  over  the  world.  Seventy  years  ago  we  were  a 
helpless  league  of  bankrupt  and  lawless  petty  sover- 
eignties. We  had  a  currency  so  degraded  that  a  leg  of 
mutton  was  cheap  at  one  thousand  dollars.  The  na- 
tional debt,  incurred  in  the  war  of  independence,  had 
hardly  a  nominal  value,  and  was  considered  worthless. 
The  absence  of  law,  order,  and  security  for  life  and 
property  was  as  absolute  as  could  be  well  conceived  in 
a  civilized  land.  Debts  could  not  be  collected,  courts 
could  enforce  no  decrees,  insurrections  could  not  be 
suppressed.  The  army  of  the  confederacy  numbered 
eighty  men.  From  this  condition  the  constitution  res- 
cued us. 

That  great  law,  reported  by  the  General  Convention 
of  1787,  was  ratified  by  the  people  of  all  the  land  vot- 
ing in  each  state  for  a  ratifying  convention  chosen  ex- 
pressly for  that  purpose.  It  was  promulgated  in  the 
name  of  the  people  :  "  We,  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  Union,  and  to 
secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  for  ourselves  and  our  pos- 
terity, do  ordain  and  establish  this  constitution."  It 
was  ratified  by  the  people — not  hy  the  states  acting 
through  their  governments,  legislative  and  executive, 
but  by  the  people  electing  special  delegates  within  each 
state  ;  and  it  is  important  to  remember  that  in  none  of 
these  ratifying  conventions  was  any  reserve  made  of  a 
state's  rigbt  to  repeal  the  Union  or  to  secede. 

Many  criticisms  were  offered  in  the  various  ratifying 
ordinances,  many  amendments  suggested,  but  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  constitution,  the  submission  to  the  per- 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


27 


petual  law,  was  in  all  cases  absolute.  The  language  of 
Virginia  was  most  explicit  on  this  point.  "  The  powers 
granted  under  the  constitution,  being  derived  from  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  may  be  resumed  by  them 
whenever  the  same  shall  be  perverted  to  their  injury  or 
oppression."  That  the  people  of  the  United  States,  ex- 
pressing their  will  solemnly  in  national  convention,  are 
competent  to  undo  the  work  of  their  ancestors,  and  are 
fully  justified  in  so  doing  when  the  constitution  shall 
be  perverted  to  their  injury  and  oppression,  there  is  no 
man  in  the  land  that  doubts.  This  course  has  been  al- 
ready indicated  as  the  only  peaceful  revolution  possi- 
ble ;  but  such  a  proceeding  is  very  different  from  the 
secession  ordinance  of  a  single  state  resuming  its  sov- 
ereignty of  its  own  free  will,  and  without  consultation 
with  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country. 

"  There  was  no  reservation  (says  Justice  Story)  of  any 
right  on  the  part  of  any  state  to  dissolve  its  connection, 
or  to  abrogate  its  dissent,  or  to  suspend  the  operation  of 
the  constitution  as  to  itself." 

And  thus,  when  the  ratifications  had  been  made,  a 
new  commonwealth  took  its  place  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth.  The  effects  of  a  new  constitution  were  al- 
most magical.  Order  sprang  out  of  chaos.  Law  re- 
sumed its  reign  ;  debts  were  collected  ;  life  and  property 
became  secure ;  the  national  debt  was  funded  and  ulti- 
mately paid,  principal  and  interest,  to  the  uttermost 
farthing;  the  articles  of  the  treaty  of  peace  in  1783 
were  fulfilled,  and  Great  Britain,  having  an  organized 
and  united  state  to  deal  with,  entered  into  a  treaty  of 
commerce  and  amity  with  us — the  first  and  the  best 
ever  negotiated  between  the  two  nations.    Not  the 


2S 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


least  noble  of  its  articles  (the  21st)  provided  that  the 
acceptance  by  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  either  country 
of  foreign  letters  of  marque  should  be  treated  and 
punished  as  piracy.  Unfortunately,  that  article  and 
several  others  were  limited  to  twelve  years,  and  were 
not  subsequently  renewed.  The  debts  due  to  British 
subjects  were  collected,  and  the  British  government  at 
last  surrendered  the  forts  on  our  soil. 

At  last  we  were  a  nation,  with  a  flag  respected  abroad 
and  almost  idolized  at  home  as  the  symbol  of  union  and 
coming  greatness,  and  we  entered  upon  a  career  of  pros- 
perity and  progress  never  surpassed  in  history.  The 
autonomy  of  each  state,  according  to  which  its  domestic 
and  interior  affairs  are  subject  to  the  domestic  legisla- 
ture and  executive,  was  secured  by  the  reservation  to 
each  state  of  powers  not  expressly  granted  to  the  Union 
by  the  constitution.  Supreme  within  its  own  orbit, 
which  is  traced  from  the  same  centre  of  popular  power 
whence  the  wider  circumference  of  the  general  govern- 
ment is  described,  the  individual  state  is  surrounded  on 
all  sides  b}T  that  all-embracing  circle.  The  reserved  and 
unnamed  powers  are  many  and  important,  but  the  state 
is  closely  circumscribed.  Thus,  a  state  is  forbidden  to 
alter  its  form  of  government.  "Thou  shalt  forever  re- 
main a  republic,"  says  the  United  States  constitution  to 
each  individual  state.  A  state  is  forbidden,  above  all,  to 
pass  any  law  conflicting  with  the  United  States  consti- 
tution or  laws.  Moreover,  every  member  of  Congress, 
every  member  of  a  state  legislature,  every  executive  or 
judicial  officer  in  the  service  of  the  Union  or  of  a  sepa- 
rate state,  is  bound  by  solemn  oath  to  maintain  the 
United  States  constitution.     This  alone  would  seem 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


29 


to  settle  the  question  of  secession  ordinances.  So  long 
as  the  constitution  endures,  such  an  ordinance  is  merely 
the  act  of  conspiring  and  combining  individuals,  with 
whom  the  general  government  may  deal.  When  it  falls 
in  the  struggle,  and  becomes  powerless  to  cope  with 
them,  the  constitution  has  been  destroyed  by  violence. 
Peaceful  acquiescence  in  such  combinations  is  perjury 
and  treason  on  the  part  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  the 
country,  for  which  he  may  he  impeached  and  executed. 
Yet  men  speak  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  having  plunged  into 
wicked  war.  They  censure  him  for  not  negotiating  with 
envoys  who  came,  not  to  settle  grievances,  but  to  de- 
mand recognition  of  the  dismemberment  of  the  republic 
which  he  had  just  sworn  to  maintain. 

It  is  true  that  the  ordinary  daily  and  petty  affairs  of 
men  come  more  immediately  than  larger  matters  under 
the  cognizance  of  the  state  governments,  tending  thus 
to  foster  local  patriotism  and  local  allegiance.  At  the 
same  time,  as  all  controversies  between  citizens  of  differ- 
ent states  come  within  the  sphere  of  the  federal  courts, 
and  as  the  manifold  and  conflicting  currents  of  so  rapid 
a  national  life  as  the  American  can  rarely  be  confined 
within  narrow  geographical  boundaries,  it  follows  that 
the  federal  courts,  even  for  domestic  purposes  as  well  as 
foreign,  are  parts  of  the  daily,  visible  functions  of  the 
body  politic.  The  Union  is  omnipresent.  The  custom- 
house, the  court-house,  the  arsenal,  the  village  post-oiiice, 
the  muskets  of  the  militia,  make  the  authority  of  the 
general  government  a  constant  fact.  Moreover,  the  rest- 
less, migratory  character  of  the  population,  which  rarely 
permits  all  the  members  of  one  family  to  remain  deni- 
zens of  any  one  state,  has  interlaced  the  states  with  each 

3* 


30 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


other,  and  all  with  the  Union  to  such  an  extent  that  a 
painless  excision  of  a  portion  of  the  whole  nation  is  an 
impossibility.  To  cut  away  the  pound  of  flesh  and  draw 
no  drop  of  blood  surpasses  human  ingenuity. 

Neither  the  opponents  nor  friends  of  the  new  govern- 
ment in  the  first  generation  after  its  establishment  held 
the  doctrine  of  secession.  The  states'  right  party  and 
the  federal  party  disliked  or  cherished  the  government 
because  of  the  general  conviction  that  it  was  a  consti- 
tuted and  centralized  authority,  permanent  and  indivis- 
ible, like  that  of  any  other  organized  nation.  Each 
party  continued  to  favor  or  to  oppose  a  strict  construc- 
tion of  the  instrument ;  but  the  doctrine  of  nullification 
and  secession  was  a  plant  of  later  growth.  It  was  an 
accepted  fact  that  the  United  States  was  not  a  confeder- 
acy. That  word  was  never  used  in  the  constitution  ex- 
cept once  by  way  of  prohibition.  We  were  a  nation, 
not  a  copartnership,  except  indeed  in  the  larger  sense 
in  which  every  nation  may  be  considered  a  copartner- 
ship— a  copartnership  of  the  present  with  the  past  and 
with  the  future.   To  borrow  the  lofty  language  of  Burke : 

"A  state  ought  not  to  be  considered  as  nothing  better 
than  a  partnership  agreement  in  a  trade  of  pepper  and 
coffee,  calico  or  tobacco,  or  some  other  such  low  con- 
cern, to  be  taken  up  for  a  little  temporary  interest,  and 
to  be  dissolved  by  the  fancy  of  the  parties.  It  is  to  be 
looked  upon  with  other  reverence,  because  it  is  not  a 
partnership  in  things  subservient  only  to  gross  animal 
existence,  of  a  temporary  and  perishable  nature.  It  is  a 
partnership  in  all  science,  a  partnership  in  all  art,  a 
partnership  in  every  virtue  and  in  all  perfection,  a  part- 
nership not 'only  between  those  who  are  living,  but  be- 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR.  31 

tween  those  who  are  living,  those  who  are  dead,  and 
those  who  are  to  be  born." 

And  the  simple  phrase  of  the  preamble  to  onr  consti- 
tution is  almost  as  pregnant — "  To  secure  the  blessings 
of  liberty  to  us  and  our  posterity." 

But  as  the  innumerable  woes  of  disunion  out  of  which 
we  had  been  rescued  by  the  constitution  began  to  fade 
into  the  past,  the  allegiance  to  the  Union,  in  certain  re- 
gions of  the  country,  seemed  rapidly  to  diminish.  It 
mm  reserved  to  the  subtle  genius  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  one  of 
the  most  logical,  brilliant  and  persuasive  orators  that 
ever  lived,  to  embody  once  more  in  a  set  of  sounding 
sophisms  the  main  arguments  which  had  been  unsuc- 
cessfully used  in  a  former  generation  to  prevent  the 
adoption  of  the  constitution,  and  to  exhibit  them  now  as 
legitimate  deductions  from  the  constitution.  The  mem- 
orable tariff  controversy  was  the  occasion  in  which  the 
argument  of  state  sovereignty  was  put  forth  in  all  its 
strength.  In  regard  to  the  dispute  itself  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  South  was  in  the  right,  and  the  North  in 
the  wrong.  The  production  by  an  exaggerated  tariff  of 
a  revenue  so  much  over  and  above  the  wants  of  govern- 
ment, that  it  was  at  last  divided  among  the  separate 
states,  and  foolishly  squandered,  was  the  most  triumph- 
ant reductio  ad  absurdum  that  the  South  could  have  de- 
sired. But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the  nullification 
by  a  state  legislature  of  a  federal  law  was  a  greater  in- 
jury to  the  whole  nation  than  a  foolish  tariff,  long  since 
repealed,  had  inflicted.  It  was  a  stab  to  the  Union  in 
its  vital  part.  The  blow  was  partially  parried,  but  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  the  wound  has  ever  healed. 

Tariffs,  the  protective  system,  free  trade — although 


82 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


the  merits  of  these  questions  must  be  considered  as  set- 
tled by  sound  thinkers  in  all  civilized  lands,  must,  nev- 
ertheless, remain  in  some  countries  the  subjects  of  honest 
argument  and  legitimate  controversy.  When  all  parts 
of  a  country  are  represented — and  especially  in  the  case 
of  the  United  States,  where  the  southern  portion  has 
three-fifths  of  a  certain  kind  of  "property"  represented, 
while  the  North  has  no  property  represented — reason 
should  contend  with  error  for  victory,  trusting  to  its  in- 
nate strength.  And  until  after  the  secession  of  the  Gulf 
states  the  moderate  tariff  of  1S57  was  in  operation,  with 
no  probability  of  its  repeal.  Moreover,  the  advocates  of 
the  enlightened  system  of  free  trade  should  reflect  that 
should  the  fourteen  slave  states  become  permanently 
united  in  a  separate  confederacy,  the  state  of  their  in- 
ternal affairs  will  soon  show  a  remarkable  revolution. 
The  absence  of  the  Fugitive  law  will  necessarily  drive 
all  the  slaves  from  what  are  called  the  border  states  f  and 
he  must  be  a  shallow  politician  who  dreams  here  in 
England  that  free  trade  with  all  the  world,  and  direct 
taxation  for  revenue,  will  be  the  policy  of  the  new  and 
expensive  military  empire  which  will  arise.  Manufac- 
tures of  cotton  and  woollen  will  spring  up  on  every  river 
and  mountain  stream  in  the  northern  slave  states,  the 
vast  mineral  wealth  of  their  territories  will  require  de- 
velopment, and  the  cry  for  protection  to  native  industry 
in  one  quarter  will  be  as  surely  heeded  as  will  be  that 
other  cry  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  now  partially  sup- 
pressed for  obvious  reasons,  for  the  African  slave  trade. 
To  establish  a  great  Gulf  empire,  including  Mexico/Cen- 
tral America,  Cuba,  and  other  islands,  with  unlimited 
cotton  fields  and  unlimited  negroes,  this  is  the  golden 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


33 


vision,  in  pursuit  of  which  the  great  republic  has  been 
sacrificed,  the  beneficent  constitution  subverted.  And 
already  the  vision  has  fled,  but  the  work  of  destruction 
remains. 

The  mischief  caused  by  a  tariff,  however  selfish  or 
however  absurd,  may  be  temporary.  In  the  last  nine- 
teen years  there  have  been  four  separate  tariffs  passed 
by  the  American  Congress,  and  nothing  is  more  proba- 
ble than  that  the  suicidal  Morrill  tariff  will  receive  essen- 
tial modifications  even  in  the  special  session  of  July  ;  but 
the  woes  caused  by  secession  and  civil  war  are  infinite ; 
and  whatever  be  the  result  of  the  contest,  this  genera- 
tion is  not  likely  to  forget  the  injuries  already  inflicted. 

The  great  secession,  therefore,  of  1860-61  is  a  rebel- 
lion, like  any  other  insurrection  against  established  au- 
thority, and  has  been  followed  by  civil  war  as  its  imme- 
diate and  inevitable  consequence.  If  successful,  it  is  a 
revolution ;  and  whether  successful  or  not,  it  will  be 
judged  before  the  tribunal  of  mankind  and  posterity 
according  to  the  eternal  laws  of  reason  and  justice. 

Time  and  history  will  decide  whether  it  was  a  good 
and  sagacious  deed  to  destroy  a  fabric  of  so  long  dura- 
tion because  of  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln ;  whether  it 
were  wise  and  noble  to  substitute  over  a  large  portion  of 
the  American  soil  a  confederacy  of  which  slavery,  in  the 
words  of  its  Vice-President,  is  the  corner-stone,  for  the 
old  republic,  of  which  Washington  with  his  own  hand 
laid  the  corner-stone. 

It  is  conceded  by  the  North  that  it  has  received  from 
the  Union  innumerable  blessings.  But  it  would  seem 
that  the  Union  had  also  conferred  benefits  on  the  South. 
It  has  carried  its  mails  at  a  large  expense.    It  has  re- 


34 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE 


captured  its  fugitive  slaves.  It  has  purchased  vast 
tracts  of  foreign  territory,  out  of  which  a  whole  tier  of 
slave  states  has  been  constructed.  It  lias  annexed  Texas. 
It  has  made  war  with  Mexico.  It  has  made  an  offer — 
not  likely  to  be  repeated,  however — to  purchase  Cuba, 
with  its  multitude  of  slaves,  at  a  price,  according  to  re- 
port, as  large  as  the  sum  paid  by  England  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  her  slaves.  Individuals  in  the  free  states 
have  expressed  themselves  freely  on  slavery,  as  upon 
every  topic  of  human  thought,  and  this  must  ever  be 
the  case  where  there  is  freedom  of  the  press  and  of 
speech.  The  number  of  professed  abolitionists  has  hith- 
erto been  very  small,  while  the  great  body  of  the  two 
principal  political  parties  in  the  free  states  have  been 
strongly  opposed  to  them.  The  Republican  party  was 
determined  to  set  bounds  to  the  extension  of  slavery, 
while  the  Democratic  party  favored  that  system  ;  but 
neither  had  designs  secret  or  avowed  against  slavery 
within  the  states.  They  knew  that  the  question  could 
only  be  legally  and  rationally  dealt  with  by  the  states 
themselves.  But  both  the  parties,  as  present  events  are 
so  signally  demonstrating,  were  imbued  with  a  passion- 
ate attachment  to  the  constitution,  to  the  established  au- 
thority of  government,  by  which  alone  our  laws  and 
our  liberty  are  secured.  All  parties  in  the  free  states 
are  now  united  as  one  man,  inspired  by  a  noble  and 
generous  emotion  to  vindicate  the  sullied  honor  of  their 
flag,  and  to  save  their  country  from  the  abyss  of  perdi- 
tion into  which  it  seemed  descending. 

Of  the  ultimate  result  we  have  no  intention  of  speak- 
ing. Only  the  presumptuous  will  venture  to  lift  the 
veil  and  affect  to  read  with  accuracy  coming  events, 


AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


35 


the  most  momentous  perhaps  of  our  times.  One  result 
is,  however,  secured.  The  Montgomery  constitution, 
with  slavery  for  its  corner-stone,  is  not  likely  to  be  ac- 
cepted, as  but  lately  seemed  possible,  not  only  by  all 
the  slave  states,  but  even  by  the  border  free  states  ;  nor 
to  be  proclaimed  from  Washington  as  the  new  national 
law  in  the  name  of  the  United  States.  Compromises 
vrill  no  longer  he  offered  by  peace  conventions,  in  which 
slavery  is  to  be  made  national,  negroes  declared  prop- 
erty over  all  the  land,  and  slavery  extended  over  all 
territories  now  possessed  or  hereafter  to  be  acquired. 
Nor  is  the  United  States  government  yet  driven  from 
Washington. 

Events  are  rapidly  unrolling  themselves,  and  it  will 
be  proved,  in  course  of  time,  whether  the  North  will 
remain  united  in  its  inflexible  purpose,  whether  the 
South  is  as  firmly  united,  or  whether  a  counter  revolu- 
tion will  be  effected  in  either  section,  which  must  neces- 
sarily give  the  victory  to  its  opponents.  We  know 
nothing  of  the  schemes  or  plans  of  either  government. 

The  original  design  of  the  Kepublican  party  was  to 
put  an  end  to  the  perpetual  policy  of  slavery  extension, 
and  acquisition  of  foreign  territory  for  that  purpose, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  maintain  the  constitution  and 
the  integrity  of  the  republic.  This  at  the  South  seemed 
an  outrage  which  justified  civil  war;  for  events  have 
amply  proved  what  sagacious  statesmen  prophesied  thir- 
ty years  ago — that  secession  is  civil  war. 

If  all  is  to  end  in  negotiation  and  separation,  notwith- 
standing the  almost  interminable  disputes  concerning 
frontiers,  the  strongholds  in  the  Gulf  and  the  unshack- 
led navigation  of  the  great  rivers  throughout  their 


36 


CAUSES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 


whole  length,  which,  it  is  probable,  will  never  be  aban- 
doned by  the  North,  except  as  the  result  of  total  defeat 
in  the  field,  it  is  at  any  rate  certain  that  both  parties 
w ill  negotiate i  more  equitably  with  arms  in  their  hands 
than  if  the  unarmed  of  either  section  were  to  deal  with 
the  armed.  If  it  comes  to  permanent  separation,  too, 
it  is  certain  that  in  the  commonwealth  which  will  still 
glory  in  the  name  of  the  United  States,  and  whose  peo- 
ple will,  doubtless,  reestablish  the  old  constitution  with 
some  important  amendments,  the  word  secession  will  be 
a  sound  of  woe  not  to  be  lightly  uttered.  It  will  have 
been  proved  to  designate,  not  a  peaceful  and  natural 
function  of  political  life,  but  to  be  only  another  expres- 
sion for  revolution,  bloodshed,  and  all  the  horrors  of 
civil  war. 

It  is  probable  that  a  long  course  of  years  will  be  run, 
and  many  inconveniences  and  grievances  endured,  be- 
fore any  one  of  the  free  states  secedes  from  the  recon- 
structed Union, 


